The
Sukhoi-30MKI fighter swept low and fast over the Punjab landscape, heading for
the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Bhatinda. It had completed a simulated
combat mission, in which fighter controllers had directed it from an Airborne
Warning and Control System (AWACS) --- a flying command centre inside a giant
IL-78 aircraft that controls air operations from 33,000 feet. Now Bhatinda air
base had been ordered to “recover” the fighter, i.e. guide it back to base and
facilitate its landing.

This unfolded
during the validation on Tuesday of a new, state-of-the-art airfield system set
up at Bhatinda under the “Modernisation of Airfield Infrastructure” (MAFI)
project. This involves modernising 67 military airfields, to let the IAF
operate in weather and visibility conditions far more restrictive than what is possible
today.

As the
AWACS directed the Su-30MKI to head for Bhatinda, an alert was flashed to the
airfield in secure digital code. With the fighter 300 kilometres away, Bhatinda
switched on a DVOR --- Doppler Very High Frequency Omni-directional Radio Range
--- a powerful radio beacon to guide the fighter home. Ten minutes later, with the
Su-30MKI now just 30 kilometres away, Bhatinda switched on its new Category II
Instrument Landing System (ILS). When fog or smoke obscures the runway, a
“localiser” generated by the ILS lets the pilot electronically aligns his
aircraft with the runway centre. Simultaneously, a “glide path” is generated,
an electronic highway that the pilot can ride down at a steady rate of descent,
until he can see the runway.

The
Su-30MKI descended till its wheels touched the Bhatinda runway. Mission
accomplished; the MAFI instrumentation worked perfectly. Without slowing down,
the fighter lifted off and headed back to its real base.

Bhatinda is
MAFI’s pilot project. By end-2016, 30 IAF and navy air bases, including 8 along
the Sino-Indian border, will have been modernised to a level where aircraft can
take off and land in visibility as low as 300 metres. This could generate
crucial air support for ground forces battling in bad weather conditions.

The Rs
2,500 crore MAFI project was globally tendered, but won by an Indian company,
Tata Power (Strategic Electronics Division).

Only Delhi
provides better facilities than this --- a single runway has Cat III ILS that guides
aircraft in to land in zero visibility. The MAFI upgrade will be good news also
for commercial air operations --- almost 30 IAF and navy air bases are used by
commercial fights, including Chandigarh, Goa, Leh and Srinagar.

“MAFI would
substantially improve all–weather capability, aid the civil aircraft that
operate from the joint–user aerodromes, enhance aerospace safety and in the
process aid growth of the aviation sector in the country,” said IAF Vice Chief,
Air Marshal RK Sharma, while commissioning the refurbished Bhatinda base.

The IAF’s
ability to conduct air operations safely in bad weather and visibility would be
enhanced further by end-2019, when 37 more air bases (including two owned by
the Ministry of Home Affairs) would have been upgraded to MAFI standards.

The pace of
work is hindered, since only 5-6 operational air force bases can be out of
action at any give time. When work on those is completed, it begins on a fresh
batch.

The IAF’s
and navy’s newer aircraft --- C-130J Super Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, Sukhoi-30MKI,
MiG-29K and the Rafale (when it enters service) would utilize the full
potential of MAFI. Older aircraft like the MiG-21s don’t have on-board
electronics needed for utilising MAFI instrumentation.

Yet, this
is a vital force multiplier for the IAF. Said Air Marshal Sharma, “By
fulfilling the need to match ground infrastructure with capability of the
modern aircraft, (MAFI) will enhance the overall capability of India’s air power.”

Electronic
security is greatly improved with MAFI. A high degree of automation over
digital networks reduces insecure voice transmissions. All electronics are
activated only when launching or recovering aircraft, and can be switched off
thereafter at the push of a button.

As a backup
for when navigational aids fail, MAFI caters for a Category II airfield
lighting system. This deploys runway lighting in a particular pattern that
guides aircraft to the touchdown point. MAFI also provides two 750 KVA
generators that can take on the entire load of the electrical and electronic
equipment in the event of a power failure.

While much
of the airfield instrumentation is commercial, MAFI provides military air bases
with a tactical air navigation (TACAN) system that is compatible only with military
aircraft.

Saturday, 29 March 2014

An Indian
Air Force (IAF) C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft, recently acquired
from the United States, crashed near Gwalior on Friday, killing all five people
on board --- three crew-members (pilot, co-pilot and loadmaster) and two more
IAF officers.

The IAF tersely
stated on Friday that the Super Hercules “crashed 72 miles west of
Gwalior airbase… (after getting) airborne from Agra at 1000 hours for a
routine flying training mission. A Court of Inquiry has been ordered to
investigate into the cause of the accident.”

So far
there is no indication of what caused the crash in easy terrain and clear
weather of an almost brand new, four-engine aircraft. In 2010, the IAF bought
six Super Hercules for $962.7 million (Rs 5,750 crore). A subsequent contract
has been signed for six more, which will start being delivered in 2016.

The Super
Hercules is the world’s most survivable combat aircraft. Unlike fighter
aircraft that zoom over their target, release their weapons load and return
home at a thousand kilometres an hour, the Super Hercules transports soldiers
to the heart of the land battle. Flying low, in pitch darkness to evade radar
and visual detection, the Super Hercules uses satellite navigation to land
without lights on a few hundred metres of unpaved mud in the tactical battle area. The 64 fully kitted
Special Forces soldiers it carries quickly emerge to strike strategic
objectives like unsecured nuclear weapons, terrorist leaders or key enemy
headquarters.

Nor is the
Super Hercules sensitive to rough weather. A variant of this aircraft is flown
by the Hurricane Hunters --- the US Air Force’s legendary 53rd
Weather Reconnaissance squadron that flies into typhoons and hurricanes to
gather data about how such storms form. The Super Hercules was an integral part
of India’s contingency plans for Cyclone Phailin last October, during the
Uttarakhand floods, and the ongoing search for Malaysian Airways Flight MH370.

The C-130J
Super Hercules is a significantly improved version of the venerated C-130
Hercules, which has been in continuous production longer than any other
military aircraft. 70 countries, including Pakistan, operate the C-130. In
1988, Pakistani president, General Zia-ul-Haq died in a C-130 Hercules crash
that was believed to be an assassination that involved disabling the crew in
mid-flight.

16 air
forces worldwide that operate almost 300 Super Hercules, have had only one
fatal accident in over a million flight hours, including years of intense combat
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lone accident was not due to technical failure; a
Norwegian C-130J crashed into a mountain in 2012.

Last
August, when New Delhi wanted to send a message to Beijing about India’s
ownership of a strategic salient near the Karakoram Pass at India’s northern
tip, the IAF landed a Super Hercules on the mud-surfaced, 16,600 feet-high
Daulat Beg Oldie airstrip. Earlier, in May 2012, when the IAF wanted to display
its strategic reach, a Super Hercules flew a six-hour, non-stop mission from
Delhi to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

Given the
widespread usage of the C-130J, the IAF is not alone in wondering what caused
the accident. The manufacturers of the Super Hercules, US giant Lockheed Martin
Aerospace Ltd, is ready to assist in the accident investigation. Sources tell
Business Standard that the IAF has not yet requested for technical assistance,
but Lockheed Martin specialists will be made available whenever it does.

“As a
manufacturer, we would certainly like to know what happened. There are users of
the Super Hercules all over the world who would also be keen,” says a Lockheed
Martin official.

The US
embassy in New Delhi has conveyed its condolences to the IAF, Business Standard
has learnt.

Friday, 28 March 2014

In what amounts to the effective ending of a decade-old ceasefire
between India and Pakistan, since January 2013 violence has flared along the de
facto border – the Line of Control (LoC) – between the two in the state of Jammu
and Kashmir. With more than 200,000 heavily armed soldiers from two nuclear-armed
countries on hair-trigger alert in LoC picquets that are sometimes just metres apart,
the potential for escalation can hardly be overestimated.

New Delhi, for its part, believes that Pakistan has undermined the
ceasefire – agreed in November 2003 between the two sides – in an attempt to revitalise
armed separatism in the state. The aim, it believes, is to tie India down and
weaken its focus on Afghanistan at a critical juncture, given the imminent
withdrawal of US and NATO troops. And with India distracted in Kashmir, a
resurgent, Pakistani-supported Taliban would give Islamabad proxy control over large
chunks of Afghanistan. This, in turn, would keep the lid on the border dispute
between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and on any demands for ‘Pashtunistan’ – a
homeland for Pashtun tribes which straddle the current border.

Furthermore, a ‘Talibanised’ Afghanistan would also provide Pakistan with
‘strategic depth’ – a notion that seeks to compensate for the country’s limited
geographical depth by making available the territory of Afghanistan in the
event of a deep Indian wartime offensive. Policy-makers in New Delhi worry
equally that a Taliban-imposed imperium in Afghanistan would free up hordes of
Pakistani-controlled jihadi fighters, who could be redirected into Jammu and Kashmir.
An active LoC would facilitate this by allowing jihadi fighters to infiltrate Kashmir.

As such, it is clear that, from this Indian perspective, the Pakistan
Army needed a flashpoint to provoke confrontation along the LoC – which duly
came on 8 January 2013, when two Indian soldiers patrolling the LoC near the border
town of Poonch were killed and mutilated, and one of their severed heads taken
away by what India alleges was a raiding party from the Pakistan Army.
Islamabad strenuously denies that its troops were involved, instead accusing
India of having shot dead three Pakistani soldiers. Amidst such accusations and
counter-accusations, firing broke out between local picquets, spread to other sectors, and subsequently
drew in heavier weapons including mortars and artillery.

In turn, Indian outrage at the beheading led New Delhi to stall the
peace dialogue between the two sides, just as it was sputtering into life after
a long hiatus caused by the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai. The talks –
comprising several components addressing specific issues, such as Kashmir,
Siachen, terrorism, and trade and commerce – have made limited progress since
they remain hostage to political disruption, with New Delhi prone to suspend them
in response to any Pakistani provocation. Just as a resumption of the dialogue seemed
possible in August 2013, for example, five more Indian soldiers were killed in
another cross-border raid near Poonch. Relations plummeted again and firing along
the LoC intensified.

By the bloody standards of the LoC, however, the current firing levels
are modest. Prior to the 2003 ceasefire, Indian and Pakistani posts on the LoC
exchanged fire more frequently in a week than they now do in a year. Yet there
is concern at the recent intensification: according to figures quoted in
India’s parliament, Pakistan violated the LoC ceasefire forty-four times in
2010, fifty-one times in 2011, ninety-three times in 2012 and 199 times last
year. Predictably denying any violation, Islamabad charges India with violating
the ceasefire twenty, sixty-seven, eighty-six and 230 times in the same years.

The 776-km LoC that has witnessed such exchanges is but one section of
the otherwise largely stable 3,323-km India–Pakistan border, drawn in part by
Britain in 1947 and shaped further by conflict between India and Pakistan in
the wars of 1947–48, 1965 and 1971, which saw each side retaining the territory
it had captured. The front line was frozen in the Simla Agreement that followed
the 1971 war, when India and Pakistan agreed to respect the current position
and to ‘refrain from the use of force in violation of this line’. In December
1972, military commanders from both sides jointly delineated the LoC on a mosaic
of nineteen maps, and it has remained unchanged since then. That it has
acquired the sanctity of an international border became evident in 1999, when New
Delhi responded to Pakistan’s occupation of territory in the Kargil district – on
the Indian side of the LoC – with unrestricted (though localised) force,
including air power, in what became known as the Kargil War.

Recent months have seen initiatives to prevent tensions along the LoC from
spiralling out of control. The two armies’ directors general of military
operations discussed the issue twice by phone in October, and met face-to-face
on Christmas Eve 2013 at the Wagah-Attari border – the first meeting between
directors general since the Kargil War. The Indian government reports that this
has significantly reduced ceasefire violations.

Even so, New Delhi believes that Kashmir has now returned to the top of Pakistan’s
agenda. On 26 January, India’s Republic Day, which Kashmiri separatists mark as
a day of protest, Pakistan allowed Maulana Masood Azhar, the virulently
anti-Indian head of the banned jihadi group Jaish-e-Mohammed, to address a
separatist rally in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-held Kashmir.
Speaking by phone from Bahawalpur, his hometown in Punjab, Azhar urged renewed jihad
against India. Islamabad, apparently embarrassed, announced that Azhar would
not address any more rallies, but Indian policy-makers remain convinced that
Pakistan is dusting off its Kashmiri jihad machine.

The Indian Army, therefore, is bracing for
a renewed counter-infiltration effort on the LoC. After the Kargil War, India
built a formidable border fence, which bristles with landmines, floodlights,
electronic and seismic sensors, cameras and night-vision devices. To tackle
infiltrators who manage to cross the fence, troops further behindare deployed in a layered, counter-infiltration grid – a
gauntlet that militants must run before reaching the relative safety of
populated areas in the hinterland, where they are
sheltered by established insurgent networks and, often, a supportive
population. To target the militants in this difficult environment, the Indian
Army obtains legal cover from the much-reviled Armed Forces (Special Powers)
Act (AFSPA), which protects soldiers from prosecution for acts carried out
whilst on duty.

The alienation of the Kashmiri population from India is fundamentally
political, but feeds off the AFSPA, which has become an emotive symbol of New
Delhi’s high-handedness. Indeed, notwithstanding the success of Indian troops
in decimating the armed insurgency – current intelligence estimates put
militant numbers in Kashmir at 150–200, down from 3,000 in the 1990s – the
government has failed to consolidate this through political outreach. Blasé New
Delhi policy-makers view Kashmir as a security problem rather than a political
one, and do not acknowledge the seething resentment in the area, especially
amongst a new generation of secessionists, whose anger is directed both at New
Delhi and at Kashmiri leaders on both sides of the LoC, who have promised
independence for a quarter of a century but delivered only a fearful, militarised
existence and tens of thousands of dead Kashmiris.

If Indian policy-makers have failed to gauge the situation in Kashmir
accurately, Pakistan is equally oblivious to the popular disenchantment there with
armed militancy. The new form of Kashmiri resistance is public protest, which
came into its own during three summers of street violence between 2008 and 2010,
when dozens of unarmed protesters were shot by Indian police and paramilitary
forces clearly unprepared for this form of defiance. During those years, a new
generation of Kashmiri leaders developed street protests into a potent weapon
against a democratic and image-conscious India. A reinvigoration of
Pakistan-fomented armed militancy would seem to them like a return to the
mistakes of the past.

Pakistan would be equally mistaken if it believed that it effectively
controlled the Taliban; indeed, there is a growing realisation that it is an
unreliable and wilful proxy and that other Afghan groups must be cultivated as
well. The Taliban is increasingly resentful of Pakistan’s tight control and
irksome demands, which the group views as serving pan-Islamic, or Pakistani, agendas
rather than a nationalist Afghan goal. Complicating Pakistan’s problems is a splintered
and isolated Taliban leadership that wields limited influence over a fragmented
rank and file exhibiting a geographical and generational disconnect with its
leaders. Without centralised direction, local Taliban commanders increasingly
follow their own path, often at variance with one another. This has been
evident in the reconciliation process in Afghanistan, which has seen Taliban leaders
such as Agha Jan Mutasim engage with the Afghan government’s High Peace
Council, while other Taliban spokespersons repudiate the dialogue. In
re-establishing control over their riven organisation, Taliban leaders cannot
be seen as puppets of the reviled Pakistani government and will necessarily present
themselves as proud Afghan nationalists who have outlasted and outfought yet
another superpower.

Pakistan’s options are further circumscribed by its home-grown Taliban,
the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Islamabad’s wish to reach political
accommodation with jihadi groups is eroding with each new TTP outrage, such as
the execution in February of twenty-three captured Pakistani paramilitary
soldiers. Yet military operations in North Waziristan, the TTP’s tribal
redoubt, seem certain to generate blowback across the Pakistani heartland,
given the group’s close linkages with other extremist groups in the country
and, indeed, with the Afghan Taliban.

Given these dilemmas, it might seem breathtakingly ambitious for Pakistan’s
leaders simultaneously to plan to expand the country’s influence into
Afghanistan and to stir up a hornet’s nest for India in Kashmir. Yet Indian
officials note that the Pakistani military and intelligence establishments have
never lacked audacity; where they go wrong – as they did in sending tribal
fighters into Kashmir in 1947 and 1965, and in infiltrating Kargil in 1999 – is
in missing the strategic consequences of clever tactical ploys. If India is
correct in surmising Islamabad’s intentions, it now seems poised to overreach
itself yet again.

For New Delhi, that is small consolation. While a substantial intensification
of the armed insurgency in Kashmir appears unlikely, India might be forced onto
the back foot by enhanced infiltration along the LoC. At the same time, within
Kashmir, relatively minor incidents have the potential to flare into further
widespread public protests. Yet, on the positive side, a more stable and
confident government after India’s elections in May could provide a fillip to
peace by initiating a credible political dialogue with Kashmiri separatists and
revoking the AFSPA, overruling the military which would prefer it to remain in
force throughout 2014. Either way, as the power struggle plays out in
Afghanistan this year, tensions on the LoC look set to continue to ebb and
flow.

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

The Indian
Air Force (IAF) continues its quest to hand Pilatus Aircraft Ltd of Switzerland
a Rs 6,000 contract for 106 PC-7 Mark II basic trainer aircraft (BTA), over and
above the 75 Pilatus trainers already bought for Rs 3,850 crore (Swiss Franc
557 million). Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) is currently developing these 106
trainers in India, a project the IAF is sparing no effort to scuttle.

A new IAF
“Request for Information” (RFI) --- a pre-tender enquiry --- floated on the MoD
website invites Indian companies to submit preliminary bids to supply the IAF
with 106 PC-7 Mk II trainers, in partnership with Pilatus. This envisages the
import of an unspecified number of BTAs ready built, with the remainder being assembled
in India. In MoD’s procurement rulebook, this is termed a “Buy & Make
(Indian)” acquisition.

In floating
this RFI, the IAF has openly defied the MoD. In 2009, while Okaying the acquisition
of 181 trainers, Defence Minister AK Antony himself ruled that 106 trainers
would be built in HAL under the “Make” category, while 75 would be imported. Since
then, the IAF has repeatedly sought to subvert this decision.

The MoD has
confirmed to Business Standard that the 2009 decision to build 106 trainers in
HAL, which was taken by the apex Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), remains
valid.

“This RFI is
a preliminary inquiry that the IAF has sent out, presumably to enlighten
itself. This doesn’t mean that an RfP (Request for Proposal, as a defence
tender is called) will be issued”, said the MoD spokesperson.

The IAF has
consistently resisted HAL’s indigenous trainer --- the Hindustan Turbo
Trainer-40 (HTT-40). As Business Standard reported (July 29, 2013, “Indian Air Force at war with Hindustan
Aeronautics; wants to import, not build, a trainer”) former IAF boss, Air
Chief Marshal NAK Browne, wrote personally to Antony, claiming that the HTT-40 would
be costlier than the PC-7 Mk II. A cost analysis by this newspaper, however, suggested
the HAL trainer would be much cheaper over its service life. The MoD did not
accept the air chief’s request.

The IAF
next asked HAL to scuttle its own BTA project and instead build the PC-7 Mk II
trainer in Bangalore with Pilatus technology (October 14, 2013, “IAF to HAL: Build Swiss trainer aircraft,
don’t develop your own”). HAL, which has worked steadily on the HTT-40, flatly
rejected this proposition.

Bizarrely,
Air Chief Marshal Browne next suggested that the PC-7 Mk II be built in an IAF
base repair depots (BRDs). Admitting that BRDs were meant only to maintain and
overhaul aircraft and engines, he claimed last October that they could also
assemble aircraft. The MoD simply ignored this suggestion, which was hastily
rebutted by the IAF’s maintenance chief, Air Marshal P Kanakaraj.

Now, with
Air Chief Marshal Browne having retired and been cleared by the government to
be an ambassador, reportedly to Finland, his successor, Air Chief Marshal Arup
Raha, has proposed that Indian private companies build the PC-7 Mk II with
Pilatus technology.

Industry
experts say there is little in this proposal for private Indian companies. With
each BTA priced at about Rs 35 crore, the ten per cent profit margin from
building 106 aircraft would be barely Rs 370 crore. This is small compensation
for the costs and risks of a company’s first foray into aerospace manufacture.

Meanwhile, HAL
continues work on the HTT-40. With MoD funding blocked by the IAF, HAL has
already committed Rs 137 crore of its own money; and stands ready to allocate
another Rs 200 crore. On a recent visit to HAL, Business Standard was briefed that
the design of structural components is done; assembly drawings will be done by
April. A first flight is targeted for early 2015.

“We had
planned to build one flying prototype of the HTT-40 and one ground test
specimen. Now, to speed up design and flight testing, HAL will build three
flying prototypes and two ground test models,” says Prashantsingh Bhadoria, one
of HAL’s talented young designers who is deputy head of the HTT-40 project.

HAL designers
are confident that, given their major role in developing the Tejas fighter; and
the Sitara intermediate jet trainer (IJT) that is nearly complete, there is
little doubt that the company will build a successful basic trainer.

IAF
planners know that the procurement cost of an aircraft is just one-fifth to
one-tenth of the cost of operating it through its service life. For that
reason, an indigenous aircraft is significantly cheaper in the long term than
an overseas purchase, where the IAF remains dependent for spares, overhauls and
upgrades on foreign vendors who invariably jack up prices after the initial
sale.

HAL
designers say they are ensuring a high degree of commonality in parts and
sub-systems between the HTT-40 and the IJT. This will reduce production costs
and also ease inventory problems in training establishments.

IAF pilots need
three types of trainer aircraft. In Stage-1 training, rookie pilots learn basic
flying on aircraft like the PC-7 Mk I, and the HTT-40. Stage-2 training
involves more complex flying on aircraft like the Kiran Mark 1, or the Sitara
IJT. Stage-3 training, which prepares pilots for occupying the cockpits of frontline
IAF fighters, is done on Hawk advanced jet trainers, which are built in HAL.

For
decades, Indian expertise in designing and building aircraft has developed
randomly, with isolated areas of excellence offset by large capability gaps in
important fields. Now a new government body has begun coordinating the holistic
development of the country’s aeronautical capability.

Just as the
Atomic Energy Commission oversees the field of nuclear energy, and the Space
Commission coordinates India’s space programmes, many believe that an empowered
Aeronautical Commission must coordinate and oversee the development of
capabilities, facilities and skilled human resources needed to design and build
aircraft, both military and commercial.

While an
Aeronautical Commission currently seems unlikely, the BK Chaturvedi Committee in
2012 recommended establishing an apex, multi-agency National Aeronautics Coordination Group (NACG),
chaired by the Secretary (Defence Production). Functioning below the NACG would
be the more hands-on and technology oriented Design & Development
Management Board (DDMB).

On
Thursday, the DDMB held its first meeting in Bangalore. Headed by Dr RK Tyagi,
Chairman of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), it included key officials from
aerospace organisations like the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO); National
Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL).

Officials familiar
with the meeting told Business Standard that discussions centred on the need to
coordinate the R&D being conducted in different centres, since significant
portions of it were overlapping and redundant.

Says the
official, “It was highlighted that there are nine R&D centres within HAL
alone; BEL has its own R&D centre; so does NAL and other establishments of
the Department of Science & Technology. These are pursuing the same goals.”

In the
absence of coordination, laboratories are designing systems that have already been
developed elsewhere, and are even in operational service. E.g. HAL has already
fitted IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) systems in IAF fighters, which
electronically differentiate enemy aircraft from our own fighters, and block friendly
fire on the latter. Yet the DRDO is designing its own IFF system, as is a
private company, Mahindra Telephonics.

The DDMB also
discussed the need to create R&D test facilities in India. Crucially needed
are a high altitude test facility, and a flying test bed for aero engines. The
DRDO currently uses test facilities in Russia, paying almost Rs 150 crore for packing,
transporting and testing an engine there. Establishing a national test facility
in India, which development agencies could pay to use, would allow aero engines
to be developed more economically.

Another proposal
involved setting up of a Flight Dynamics Simulation Centre to analyse flight
regimes that India does not yet understand fully, such as the complex dynamics
of stalls and spins. It was suggested that R&D institutions should combine
forces to write the challenging software for these flight regimes, jointly establishing
software teams, control law teams, and a simulator complex.

“We need to
have a clear road map to take on the challenges… (that) range from basic and
applied research, involvement of academia, production, spotting and retaining
talent,” said Tyagi, who heads the DDMB.

Significantly,
the DDMB brings together competing agencies that have had difficult relations
in the past. The discordant rivalry between R&D agencies like DRDO and
production agencies like HAL has been widely reported. Yet, participants from
both those organisations told Business Standard that they were elated at the
prospect of joining forces.

“Planning
and working together is something that has never happened before. We have
always had energy; now, for the first time, we will also have synergy,” said a
DDMB member.

The initial
structures currently set up could see change. There is dichotomy in placing
both the NACG and DDMB under the MoD, while other ministries share
responsibility for aerospace development. The government’s Allocation of
Business Rules makes the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) responsible for
developing commercial aircraft, a task the MoCA has not seemed inclined to take
up. The project to develop a Regional Transport Aircraft (RTA) is being jointly
pursued by NAL/HAL without MoCA oversight.

“There is a
need to change the Allocation of Business Rules in order to bring rules in line
with reality”, points out a senior MoD official.

Saturday, 22 March 2014

The
truncated version of the Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks report (HBR) that
was recently posted on the internet by Australian author and journalist,
Neville Maxwell, constitutes the Indian Army’s sweeping enquiry into its only
major military debacle, at the hands of China in 1962.

Since it
was submitted to army chief, General JN Chaudhuri, in 1963, the report has been
buried, still retaining its “top secret” classification. It is a tale of skewed
civil-military relations and bumbling strategic direction, and of inconceivable
military incompetence at higher levels of command.

Even so,
the most telling account in the 144 pages of the HBR blogpost is that of the
Namka Chu, the mountain torrent west of Tawang where the war began, and where
India’s 7 Infantry Brigade was wiped out in hours, triggering a rout that ended
a month later with the Chinese Army poised at the threshold of Assam.

7 Infantry
Brigade was rushed to the Namka Chu as a consequence of the “Forward Policy”,
which moved 56 Assam Rifles platoons to the McMahon Line to demonstrate Indian
presence on the disputed border. Eastern Command issued instructions for the
move on January 10, 1962.

One of
these new posts was Dhola Post, which eventually triggered the war. In one of
the HBR’s revelations, it emerges that Dhola was accidentally established on China’s
side of the McMahon Line. For 52 years, India has held that by attacking Dhola
Post, China committed aggression and started the war.

Before New
Delhi ordered the “Forward Policy” in December 1961, the army moved carefully along
the Sino-Indian border. According to the patrolling policy, “NO patrolling except
defensive patrolling is to be permitted within two to three miles of the
McMAHON Line (capitals in all quotes in original).”

This
changed on February 24, 1962, when Tezpur-based XXXIII Corps, commanded by the
respected Lt Gen Umrao Singh, ordered nine new border posts, included one between
Tawang and Bhutan, at the Tri-Junction of Tibet, Bhutan and India. This post
became famous as Dhola.

Discrepancies
in the maps available then depicted an arbitrary border running due west from the
border outpost of Khinzemane to Tri-Junction, rather than the watershed
boundary that constituted the McMahon Line. Operating with those faulty maps, Captain
Mahabir Prasad of 1 SIKH established Dhola Post on June 4, 1962, on what
Henderson Brooks reveals was China’s side of the McMahon Line.

The HBR
blogpost says that, in August 1962, XXXIII Corps admitted to Eastern Command that
its post was wrongly sited, but not that it was on Chinese territory. Aware of
the consequences, XXXIII Corps suggested that the army plays innocent. It wrote,
“…to avoid alarm and queries from all concerned, it is proposed to continue
using the present grid reference.”

Henderson
Brookes is frank in his assessment: “This, in effect, meant that the post was
actually NORTH of the McMAHON Line.”

The
consequences were not long in coming. On September 8, Dhola Post was surrounded
by some 600 Chinese soldiers. Instead of wriggling out from this uncomfortable
position, the army chose an aggressive response. The HBR blogpost recounts
that, on September 12, four days after Dhola was surrounded, the Eastern
Command chief, Lt Gen LP Sen, told Lt Gen Umrao Singh, and GOC 4 Division, Maj
Gen Niranjan Prasad that the “Government would not accept any intrusion of the
Chinese into our territory. If they come in, they must be thrown out by force.”

Sen
“clarified that the Government had always maintained that McMAHON Line was
based on the watershed principle and, therefore, it ran along the THAGLA Ridge.
Thus DHOLA was well inside the McMAHON Line.”

The
countdown to war had begun. The day after Dhola Post was surrounded, the
ill-fated 7 Infantry Brigade was ordered to the Namka Chu, while the Chinese too
intensified their force build up. The HBR blogpost notes, “In fact, their build
up behind the THAGLA Ridge was far greater than ours.” On September 20, the
first exchanges of firing began in the Namka Chu valley.

On
September 22, the government ordered army chief, General PN Thapar, in writing:
“The Army should prepare and throw the Chinese out as soon as possible. The
Chief of Army Staff was accordingly directed to take action for the eviction of
the Chinese in Kameng Frontier Division of NEFA as soon as he is ready.”

Meanwhile,
laughably given that India knew about China’s build up in the area, XXXIII
Corps formulated a plan to evict the Chinese from the area of Dhola Post, using
three infantry battalions to attack across the Namka Chu. This was to begin
earliest by October 10.

On October
4, Army HQ announced the formation of IV Corps, bringing Lt Gen BM Kaul in
direct command of the operations. The HBR blogpost recounts how Kaul personally
moved from headquarters to posts, railroading 7 Brigade to the tactically and
logistically unviable Namka Chu positions, with just 50 rounds of ammunition
per man, one blanket, no winter clothing, and without even minor medical
supplies.

Says
Henderson Brooks evocatively, “The retribution was to come.” He quotes Sir
Alfred Tennyson’s immortal lines from Charge of the Light Brigade, “Their’s not
to reason why; Their’s not to make reply; Their’s but to do and die.”

Astonishingly,
Kaul seemed oblivious of the possibility that the Chinese would actually
attack. The HBR blogpost says, “On 14 and 15 October, the Corps Commander had
discussions with the Divisional Commander. The theme of the discussions was how
and when and with what more preparation could we attack THAGLA Ridge (across
the Namka Chu). Curiously, in these discussions the possibility of the Chinese
attacking us SOUTH of the NAMKA CHU was never considered.”

This
surreal form of command continued till October 17, when Kaul took ill and a
special plane from New Delhi, with medical specialist on board, flew him back to
the capital.

The
commander of 7 Infantry Brigade, Brigadier John Dalvi, who recounted events in
his seminal “Himalayan Blunder”, found Kaul commanding IV Corps from a sickbed
in Delhi. On October 19, the evening before the Chinese attacked across the
Namka Chu and swept away his brigade, Dalvi is recounted as telling his
divisional commander, “I am NOT prepared to stand by and watch my troops
massacred. It is time someone took a firm stand. If the higher authorities want
a scapegoat, I am prepared to offer myself and put in my papers on this issue.”

Henderson
Brooks writes, “The Brigade Commander had represented almost daily before this,
but, by 19 October, he had reached the end of his tether. It is apparent so had
the Chinese. They struck the next morning.”

Friday, 21 March 2014

The recent internet
posting of what Australian author and journalist, Neville Maxwell, claims to be
the “top secret” Henderson Brooks Report --- the army’s long suppressed inquiry
into the military defeat by China in 1962 --- has become an opportunity for
many.

For Maxwell
himself, it has --- unwittingly or by design --- created a swell of free
publicity for a new edition of “India’s China War”, Maxwell’s controversial
book, which has recently been re-published in India. Dismissed by some scholars
as pro-China propaganda and acclaimed by others, Maxwell’s book is now squarely
in the spotlight.

Meanwhile,
the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has seized the opportunity to attack the
Congress Party. On the BJP website, senior party leader Arun Jaitley demands
the entire Henderson Brooks report be released, and speculates whether some
parts still remains secret “because these pages contain some material which can
be embarrassing to those in power in 1962?”

Jaitley
does not clarify why the BJP did not declassify and release the report whilst
it governed India from 1998-2004.

Finally, the
UPA government has cited “national security” to avoid comment. The defence
ministry has termed the report “extremely sensitive” and claimed that its
contents are of “current operational value”, echoing what Defence Minister
Antony told parliament on April 19, 2010 to justify keeping the report secret.

Numerous army
generals have flatly rejected the notion that the events leading to 1962 have
“current operational value”. Former northern army commander Lt Gen Rostum
Nanavatty says, “I can’t see how declassifying the Henderson Brooks report
would, in any way, affect current operations.”

For Lt Gen
TB Henderson Brooks, identifying lessons from the 1962 debacle for the army and
the country to benefit from was one of his key objectives after being appointed
by army chief Gen JN Choudhuri on December 14, 1962, to probe into the operations.

Yet, even
today, the absence of a measured discussion continues to ensure that important lessons
from the run up to 1962 remain unlearnt.

The HBR
weblog posted by Maxwell has two parts --- the second part listing out
“detailed lessons” relating to training, equipment, physical fitness and the
quality of command. These, says the HBR blogpost, are “largely in the tactical
sphere and are meant for more general distribution (within the army).”

With a
jittery political leadership sweeping the HBR under the carpet, those lessons
never reached the army’s rank and file. The only two copies of the report in
India remained locked in safes --- one in the army, the other in the MoD.

There are
further lessons listed in the first part of the HBR blogpost, many of them as
valid today as they were in 1962.

The HBR
notes that the terrain in Ladakh will always militarily favour China over India
(since Chinese troops can move quickly over the relatively flat Tibetan
plateau). India, in contrast, can manoeuvre only near Chushul and in the Indus
valley. The report notes, “Our roads, even when fully developed, will not have
the capacity to sustain major operations… Accessibility to DAULAT BEG OLDI and
HOT SPRING Sectors in the KARAKORAM Mountains will always be difficult.”

This
observation rings startlingly true even today. When the Chinese army intruded
into Daulat Beg Oldi last year, India’s reaction and troop movement was severely
constrained since the road to that sector is incomplete even today.

China too
faced difficulties in moving troops and supplies from mainland China to the
Tibetan plateau, notes the HBR blogpost. “Once there, however, all Sectors are
easily accessible from their side. Thus their capacity for manoeuvre is much
greater than ours.”

China has
certainly learnt its lessons, overcoming the challenge of accessing the Tibetan
plateau. In 2006, the 1,956-kilometre Qinghai-Tibet railway was completed;
which supplemented three road highways leading into Tibet from Qinghai, Chengdu
and Xinjiang, which were built in the 1950s. Currently, work is under way on
another railway line from Chengdu to Lhasa.

India’s
difficulties in defending Ladakh in 1962, Henderson Brooks concluded, stemmed
from the fact that we did not have a strong defensive line. The army tried to
defend “cold war” outposts all along the border, established by troops that moved
forward in accordance with the Forward Policy. Instead of that, says the HBR
blogpost, “In LADAKH we should limit our commitments in war to the holding of
LADAKH Range at the few focal points that give access to Leh.”

This
military willingness to vacate large tracts of territory without a fight (ahead
of the Ladakh Range), in order to give battle to China from tactically
favourable terrain (like the Ladakh Range), contrasted starkly with the
political leadership’s insistence on occupying and defending all the territory
claimed by India.

On similar
lines, the HBR blogpost terms a “fundamental error” the army’s decision to
occupy a defence line on the Sela Ridge after withdrawing from Towang.
Admitting that Sela --- a dominating natural obstacle just south of Towang --- was
“a strong natural tactical position”, Henderson Brooks believes that Sela
should have been ignored and the next stand made at Bomdila, even though that
meant withdrawing 70 kilometres and leaving that territory to the Chinese. The
HBR blogpost concludes that defeat “would have been averted had a clean break
been made at TOWANG and the withdrawal to BOMDILA had been carried out as
planned.”

There was,
evidently, a major disconnect between a political leadership on the one hand
that wanted every inch of Indian territory defended, even without the military
and material resources to do so; and, on the other hand, an army steeped in the
World War II experience of deep withdrawals and long advances, many of which
were in other countries, without the emotional baggage of defending ones own territory.
Like most generals of that time, Henderson Brooks appears unable to notice, far
less bridge, this divide.

Thursday, 20 March 2014

Lieutenant
General TB Henderson Brooks was clearly worried that his inquiry into the
army’s 1962 defeat at the hands of the Chinese might be made into a whitewash
job that confined itself to minor tactical questions, while ignoring the bigger
issues --- questions of higher defence management --- that had actually led to
national humiliation.

That worry
is evident from the very start of the “top secret” Henderson Brooks Report
(HBR), large chunks of which have been posted on the internet by former
journalist and author, Neville Maxwell, now settled in Australia.

Despite
those apprehensions, or perhaps because of them, Henderson Brooks and his co-author,
the iconic, Victoria Cross winning Brigadier PS Bhagat, boldly stretched their
mandate to investigate and point out flaws in the political and top military handling
of the run-up to and conduct of war.

In the very
first page of his report, Henderson Brooks makes the startling disclosure that
the army chief--- General JN Chaudhuri,
who was appointed after the 1962 debacle led to the resignation of his
predecessor, General PN Thapar --- advised him not to review the functioning of
Army Headquarters (AHQ) while carrying out his inquiry.

Henderson
Brooks believed that excluding AHQ from his investigation would mask crucial
events and paint an incomplete picture. He says it would have been “convenient
and logical” to begin tracing events from AHQ, through command headquarters, to
the field formations that actually did the fighting.

According
to the posted HBR, General JN Chaudhuri’s order to exclude AHQ from the enquiry
meant, “The relationship between Defence Ministry and Army Headquarters and the
directions given by the former to the latter could, therefore, also not be
examined.”

Henderson
Brooks remained determined not to let that happen. He doggedly scrutinised AHQ decisions,
if not through AHQ documents, then through written orders, instructions and
minutes that AHQ issued to Headquarters Western Command (HQ WC) and Eastern
Command (HQ EC).

The posted
HBR notes that, “the actions and developments at Army Headquarters have had to
be traced from documents available at Command Headquarters. In this process, a
number of loose ends concerning Army Headquarters could not be verified and
have been left unanswered.””

It remains
unclear why General JN Chaudhuri restricted the scope of Henderson Brooks’ “operations
review”, as the inquiry ordered by the army chief on December 14, 1962, was
termed. Not only was AHQ placed off limits for Henderson Brooks, his mandate
was skewed towards just one part of the war --- the Kameng sector, around
Tawang.

According to
the HBR blogpost, Henderson Brooks was ordered, “to go into the reverses
suffered by the Army, particularly in the KAMENG Frontier Division of NEFA”,
i.e. the Tawang sector of the North East Frontier Agency. He was to enquire
into tactical issues --- specifically what went wrong with training, equipment,
system of command, physical fitness of troops, and the capacity of commanders
at all levels to influence the men under their command.

Eventually,
Henderson Brooks framed his own expansive mandate. Besides scrutinising AHQ
wherever possible, and commenting on MoD and Intelligence Bureau (IB)
functioning, the enquiry also focused on Ladakh (i.e. the Western Command) as intently
as on Kameng. The posted report notes, “It is also obvious that the developments
in NEFA were closely correlated to those in LADAKH, and, thus, any study of
NEFA operations must be carried out in conjunction with… the Western Theatre.”

Henderson
Brooks consciously viewed the big picture, choosing to examine “developments
and events prior to hostilities as also the balance, posture and strength of
the Army at the outbreak of hostilities.”

It is
perhaps for this reason --- and for the occasionally blistering comments on
political and civilian agencies --- that successive governments in New Delhi
have chosen to keep the Henderson Brooks report “top secret.”

For
example, the posted report is scathing about Defence Minister VK Krishna
Menon’s fetish for keeping meetings unrecorded. The posted report notes “The
Army Commander (Lt Gen LP Sen) in his report… has brought out that the Defence
Minister categorically stated that in view of the TOP SECRET nature of the
conference, NO minutes would be kept. This practice, it appears, was followed
at all conferences that were held by the Defence Minister in connection with
these operations. This is a surprising decision and one which could and did
lead to grave consequences. It absolved in the ultimate analysis anyone of the
responsibility of any major decision. This, it could and did lead to decisions
being taken without careful and considered thought on the consequences of those
decisions.”

Pointing out
“military decisions must only be taken by those who are in the full knowledge
of the military situation and can appreciate the tactical implications,” the
posted HBR is withering about the deeply flawed evaluations of BN Mullick, the
Director IB (DIB). Other than Mullick’s calamitous opinion that the Chinese
would not use force against Indian troops that were pushing forward into
contested territory, the HBR blogpost also terms “militarily unsound” the DIB’s
opinion that scarce forces should be diverted to hold areas like Taksing,
Mechuka and Tuting in NEFA, which the report termed the “frittering away of
forces.”

The posted
HBR also slams Foreign Secretary MJ Desai’s gung-ho suggestions at a time when
Sino-Indian tensions were boiling over after Indian jawans moved to the
disputed Thagla Ridge. Says the HBR acerbically, “The Foreign Secretary’s
suggestion of establishing a post on THAGLA Ridge alongside the Chinese, viewed
against the happenings in LADAKH, seems incredible.”

Yet,
ultimately, the HBR reserves most of its disapproval for AHQ, which neither
insulated the field formations from powerful, interfering civilians, nor
allowed the units to plan and execute their battle. The posted report notes:
“(F)or proper planning and orderly progress, it is essential that lower
formations are left to execute orders without interference and undue pressure
from Army Headquarters, who neither know the local conditions nor details of
execution…”